Exit Wounds

Peter Godwin found acclaim for the rich, moving memoirs that detailed his youth in Rhodesia, and subsequent journalistic experiences in post-independence Zimbabwe. They plunged readers into the realities of a country in political and economic collapse and are essential and often tragic accounts of the country’s story. Exit Wounds, Godwin’s most recent slice of autobiography, is a departure from this, and my favourite of his works so far. It’s a less linear, more structurally and lexically playful take on his mother dying and the end of his marriage. Yes, the topics are hyper personal, but the grappling with loss, death and family, also have such universal appeal, that the book is instantly absorbing. Godwin lives in the US, and his mother died in the UK (after working in Zimbabwe as a doctor for most of her life), so the question of ‘home’ and the life and longing of emigrés and refugees run throughout it too. I found that to be especially ‘lump in the throat’ stuff.